Higher voice and data businesses helped the Aditya Birla Group firm to reach a standalone net profit of Rs 398.5 crore in the quarter, up 13.2 per cent from Rs 351.9 crore.

With increasing proportion of rural subscribers, the seasonal slowdown in the second quarter has become more pronounced resulting in sharp contraction in the voice minutes of use by 5.8 per cent to 138.8 billion minutes compared to 147.3 billion minutes in first quarter, Kapania said.

However, he said the long-term business trends remain robust and the company is on course of its mission of consistent, competitive, responsible and profitable growth.

Idea strengthened its revenue market share to 16.2 per cent and VLR (visitor location register) subscriber market share to 16.7 per cent, an improvement of over 1 per cent in a year.

The telecom firm has launched 4,312 new network sites, taking the total to 1,14,001 and expanded optical fibre network to 77,000 km.

The 'voice minutes' expansion by 10.5 per cent in Q2 was ably supported by annual active customer addition of 13.1 million.

With the company clamping down on promotional minutes for new and existing customers, the average realised rate per minute improved over the year by 3.4 paisa/minute (8.3 per cent) to 44.7 paisa/minute. The VAS contribution also increased to 16.1 per cent, further improving overall ARPM. Kapania said the company is focused on efficient cost management with overall subscriber acquisition and reduction in marketing costs by 1.6 per cent.

The revenue growth and scale benefit translated into healthy standalone Ebitda margin of 27.6 per cent, an improvement by 4 per cent, in the period under review. This helped company generate cash profit of Rs 1,455.6 crore, a growth of 18.2 per cent, further strengthening its balance sheet.